Come Back and Stay
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Chloe gets up to get a glass of water and has to marvel at the sight of the bed she goes back to.
1. Default Chapter

Title: Come Back and Stay

Author: Manda

Rating: PG-13

Fandom: Smallville

A/N: Dedicated to lj user"aisling12" , who gave me the niftiest Samhain present. I just woke up and Chloe, Lex and Clark were in my mailbox looking so ultimately pretty, we all agreed she needed a present in return.

She stumbled out of the bed with the original thought being that she desperately needed a glass of water, but then realized, bereft of bed warmth that the house was freezing. What was it about any place he ever owned it seemed frigid? Was he trying to make sure he was cold even under all the layers of his suits? Grabbing the shirt left rumpled on a chair by the wall she pulled it around her and hurried out of the room.

Her mouth was the Sahara desert and she was only mostly awake, so it amused her to stick her tongue to the dry part of her mouth and open her mouth as she walked to the kitchen. She got a cup, filled it with water, and left the kitchen, such a normal routine that she never worried about the needing the lights anymore.

Perhaps mostly awake was only her way of not being utterly realistic though. Because anytime she was here she was more awake and more real than anywhere and anytime else. It was as if every nerve and cell in her body came to full awareness. Even when she still felt sleepy and heeded the call of the warm, cozy bed she'd left.

And what a bed it truly was, she marveled having returned through the bedroom door. So beautiful that it had her heart in her throat and her stomach in a knot just staring. A little apprehensive and a lot amazed even now.

One lay half strewn across the right side of the bed with an arm hanging off of it, covers partly over his chest, with tan skin and dark, messy hair, while the other was curled on his side facing the opposite direction somehow having managed to keep his duvet cocooned over his shoulder and around him, with the palest of skin making him almost look fragile as he slept.

She fingered the flannel of the shirt that she'd stolen to throw around her against the evil cold. Long enough that it came a few inches short of her knees. Some moments she still couldn't believe she was here. She'd pinch herself and wake up, but it wasn't like this was the first time. It was even the fifth or sixth. The sex was hot. It was always hot. But in just the same way so was dinner or whatever events they all attended before. Teasing, smoldering, inquisitive and amazing.

Laying her head against a dark, thick bedpost she glanced toward the window and the sky that was just beginning to be touched by light before looking back to them. She was always the first to wake up, it was simply habit. Her body like clock work needed water and then she was usually up for the day. But what a beautiful day to begin it this way.

Next the blanket hog would wake up, because he was meticulous about time and would need to work. He was a bit of a deep sleeper, but had a habit of nightmares and suddenly startling awake only to attach himself to someone till he calmed back to sleep. Though once he was up and to the world he was all serious and official, unlike this man before her, serene and peaceful.

Then the farm boy who was the only one among them who understood the goodness of sleeping in. He was a light sleeper for as long as she'd known him, but he slept like a log around them. He said it must've meant he trusted them completely and didn't need to worry about it ever. He'd sleep forever. Till the shadows were forming again and he was pouting because he woke to an empty bed.

"Where'd you-" the sleepy mumbling started from the middle of the bed as he groped through the open side of the bed opposite from the one filled.

"Over here," she said softly. "I had to get-"

"I forgot to move it," he said sleepily, rubbing his eyes and then his baldpate, before his arm swung out in a direction unchecked. "I had a glass on the desk for you."

She was smiling before her eyes even looked to the table. True to his word there was a glass of water sitting on the desk, untouched and full. A blush rose in her cheeks and her smile couldn't even find a way to fade partly.

"Come back and stay in bed this time," he mumbled wrestling the covers around him till he had them open for her to get back into bed.

She walked toward the side of the bed, enjoying the fuzzy feeling in her stomach of being thought of before the fact. Before dinner and after dinner bedroom treats he, or even they, had thought about her and a way to make her stay for the night more comfortable. She set down the water she had down on the bed table and said teasingly, "You'll be up again shortly for work."

Striving through the air he finally found her hand and tugged her in to the bed, pulling her close as though she were some sort of live teddy bear. "You fell asleep too fast last night. I canceled all my meetings and appointments."

A kiss on the back of her neck, followed the slow and sleepy trail of the words that told her Lex was now falling back asleep, comforted in the fact she had returned and everyone was accounted for again. A few minutes later the bed shook as Clark readjusted again, curling up against Lex, his hand going between his front and her back, then moving again to rest lax on her side.

And Chloe, just as she slipped off to sleep again, thought for this kind of heaven she'd stay forever.


	2. Stay and Play

Title: Stay and Play

Author: Wanderlustlover

Email: NC

Category: Aisling12 Gifts, Smallville

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine, as usual. I do this purely out of love and respect for the series and the characters. This is Part 2, Part 1 is Come Back and Stay.

Archive: Ask first, though I will usually concede.

Title: Stay and Play

Author: Wanderlustlover

Email: NC

Category: Aisling12 Gifts, Smallville

Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine, as usual. I do this purely out of love and respect for the series and the characters. This is Part 2, Part 1 is Come Back and Stay.

Archive: Ask first, though I will usually concede.

He wasn't sure whether it was the heated breath of the nose pressed into his back or the movement of the frigid feet against his shins, but he knew, at the point when he started trying to figure out which one had woken him up for the umpteenth time, that he was very much awake and trying to fight the habit. And losing horridly the way one does after coming off hard drugs for the first time.

Turning over after a moment, he shifted both of them in different positions. And he couldn't help but just look on them almost jealously in their peaceful sleep.

Turning over after a moment, he shifted both of them in different positions. He couldn't help but look on them with jealousy while they retained their peaceful sleep.

The one behind him went from curled up to sprawled back on the bed, one arm thrown up so that it hit the headboard, temporarily shaking things and affording a sleepy apology before the normal rhythm of breathing returned. The other turned into him, curling up again with that tanned face half buried against his luminescent skin; the body suddenly so calm where it was always so active.

He didn't want to move from where he was curled but lying in bed awake could only last so long.

Even if his wished this little tryst could go on forever.

The girl would go, as she always did.

The boy would stay, as he always did.

That was how this dance went.

Disentangling himself slowly so as not to wake them, he moved over them and off of the bed. He shivered when his feet touched the floor, his eyes scanning for the warm slippers that had been lost somewhere between the Champaign and the games. Picking up his velvet robe from the floor by the bed table, far from its hook, he pulled it on and synched the waist.

Walking across the room, he opened the doors to his closet and started searching for something that felt appropriate for the day. About two minutes later he emerged from the closet with a Hugo Boss set of a crimson opera dip-dye shirt and extended tap pants hanging over his arm. Staring at them lying there, curled together like he'd never been when he was in-between, he cracked a partial smile.

They were sublime, and even like this they seemed fleeting. A dream he'd just wake up from in a few minutes. His father would be screaming, darkness caving in all around. The smell of liquor, the taste of powder and the scent of death. They both were so important to the person he was today, in way he couldn't even find to tell them.

The water pouring down on him was refreshing, and he put his hands out wide on the wall, leaving his head under the spray. Soap and spray, towels and soft cloth sliding over his body all happened in a routine of such normal repetition that he hardly noticed it even while being meticulous about it. He was on his way out of the bedroom when he shook his head and looked back at them still sleeping.

They were completely unaware of anything around them; especially of him shaking his head and smiling at the child-like innocence expressed in the way they were caught up together. Though they'd hardly be innocent awake, and the thought of them last night was enough to quicken his pulse, they continued to keep him on a narrower path than his upbringing had taught.

On most days he admitted that was for the best.

She kept him honest with her complete need for the truth.

He gave him a since of hypocrisy when they debated secrets.

He longed to crawl back into bed, but he knew it wouldn't happen. He gave it about an hour to an hour and a half before they stirred. Walking out he called to one of the staff to prepare a brunch that would be ready in about the same amount of time, and had someone prepared to send coffee into the bedroom and the study about twenty minutes before the food was ready. He got himself a cup and retired to his office, working on the newest series of complaints and discoveries in his company.

Profits were up in some places and slipping in others. He needed to fire a general collective in a small city because apparently the project wasn't panning out there. He also needed to hire more people to work a banquet coming up in Metropolis for an unveiling. He had other people to handle these things, but it made him feel more involved.

And it kept him from looking in certain other folders too long.

It should have been enough that he hadn't stopped those from coming to his desk.

"I seem to remember someone asking me to come back to bed and stay there." A voice called from the door, and he closed a folder slowly, looking up at the intrepid reporter before him who was smiling, her head tilted, still dressed in only a flannel shirt. "Doesn't that usually mean you're supposed to stay and keep company? You're being a terrible host."

He laughed and waved her to the standing long bar.. "I can make up for my horrid behavior with a divine coffee I just recently shipped in."

"You are a horrible man," she replied, smirking, as she padded forward barefoot toward the table, running a hand through her disheveled flip-style hair. "But I accept your tribute so long as it's heavily caffeinated. If it isn't you'll just have to die."

"Then I'm lucky this time."

She laughed and got her coffee, which he watched her bask in it like a cat in warm sunlight. "Your seats are too cold."

Lex smiled, closing his laptop and settling a small stack of folder right next to it. "They weren't originally acquired with journalist who only wore flannel shirts that didn't belong to them in mind."

"What can I say?" She smirked, pulling her legs up under her. "Clark's style may be lacking in some ways, but it's definitely warm. I should get dressed any way, though. I should head back home and start writing up my story from last night."

"Clark will be sad he missed the flannel-clad sight of you in the morning, and then he'll sulk around the whole day." He leaned forward, pressing his fingertips together, looking at her over them. "Then I'll have to punish you for ruining my boyfriend's mood for the whole day."

"I should get home. He'll sleep for hours and hours and hours." She said, her smile widening and tone more teasing than serious at all, as she spoke right over the rim of her coffee cup sipping at it because it was still too hot.

"Or you could stay, drink coffee and play chess with me until having brunch with both of us, and then enjoy a relaxing afternoon before getting home to all your work."

"You're never going to let me go, are you?" she replied with a smirk, watching him get up and head for the chessboard on another small table in the room. "I don't think I've won a match against you in months, maybe even years. Tell me why I should stay and play?"

Lex smiled, darkly, as he set the board down on the armchair table next to her chair and the one across from it. "Because you hate to leave as much as we hate for you to go."


End file.
